4/22/14

Man in the mirror, not the magnifying glass (The Korea Times, April 22, 2014) by Casey Lartigue, Jr.

In the 1988 song "Man in the Mirror," the
late Michael Jackson encouraged people who want to make a change in the world
to start by changing themselves. Nice thought, but the reality is that most
people prefer to use a magnifying glass to examine others. This is especially
true of my fellow social activists imploring people to "wake up."

A handful of activists will rally in a circle, but hundreds of fun-loving
people show up, with very little notice, to join a snowball fight or mud
wrestling festival. Fans fill up huge sports stadiums to support their teams.
Two million people, mostly from South Korea, rushed to sign a petition
denouncing the judging of an Olympic figure skating competition involving Kim
Yu-na. Shaking their heads, regardless of ideology or issue, many activists
ask: "Why don't more people care about (fill-in-the-blank important
issue)?"

My answer? They may care, but have other priorities and that's fine. There is
nothing wrong with free people minding their own business to raise children, work,
study _ or to join snowball fights. In business, the customer is always
right. For many social activists, people who haven't joined our particular
causes allegedly don't care.

I am deeply involved in advocacy for the human rights of North Korean victims
of the Kim dynasty, so I often hear complaints from fellow activists about
allegedly apathetic South Koreans. I heard the point made forcefully by a
respected Korean-American activist at a gathering I attended in late March in
the United States. In an ongoing special interview series with North Korean
refugees by the website NKNews, one refugee unequivocally stated that "South Koreans
are, in fact, apathetic to North Korean human rights." She
cited UN-COI commissioner Judge Michael Kirby as saying that South Koreans
are apathetic to human rights issues in the North.

Some South Koreans defensively try to explain the apathy, but my advice to
activists: Let's focus on the people who have already joined us. As I often
say: "If you organize a planning meeting for 100 people, but only three
people show up, then you know what? You've got three people to work with. Get
started with them, don't focus the meeting on the 97 people who aren't
there." There are probably at least 50 NGOs with operations in South
Korea helping North Korean refugees, that is a great place to start by
forming new alliances and strategies.

Most say they agree, but as Winston Churchill once said; "Men
occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and
hurry off as if nothing ever happened."

A few people collaborating can get something practical done to attract
others. I am co-founder and co-director of the Teach North
Korean Refugees project hosted by the Mulmangcho Human Rights Center.
We have directly matched 97 North Korean refugees with about 130 volunteer
English teachers in the last year. There are almost 50 million people in
South Korea. Does it matter that 99.9 percent of them are apathetic about our
particular cause and will never hear about us? Koreans as a population may
not care, but I found some people who do.

The point is: We focus on what we can do rather than brow-beating or
guilt-tripping those who haven't joined our ranks. If we can't attract people
to our particular causes, then we should reflect on our tactics, message,
focus and funding strategy. The fault, to borrow from Shakespeare's Cassius,
is often in ourselves, not external factors. Even after that kind of
strategic self-assessment, it could still be that people won't be interested.
That's life. But that doesn't mean others are apathetic, that there is
anything wrong with them minding their own business or that they deserve to
be criticized for not joining.

When I hear complaints that people don't care about a particular cause, I ask
the advocate to explain what it is he or she is doing to attract newcomers.
In most cases, they will admit: Nothing. For those who say they have tried,
then what was Plan B or C when Plan A didn't work? That approach may be more
challenging, requiring them to think more deeply or plan differently.
Activists who truly want to make a positive change in the world should
reflect more on the man in the mirror rather than turning a magnifying glass
on society.